How to choose an online course: a practical guide to find the highest quality education

Have you got any purposes for this new academic year?

Maybe to update your knowledge, improve competencies, dig deeper into a speciality or to know the new scientific updates. There’s no doubt that online education has become a flexible option each time more important for health professionals and to keep learning without going anywhere. 

But there’s a problem: there’s more and more options everytime. There’s short programs, long ones, webinars, free content and accredited courses everywhere. You have before you so many choices that it is difficult to determine which one fits your needs. 

To choose well doesn’t mean to choose the longest program, neither the cheapest nor the most publicized. The important thing is to find the one that adds the biggest value to your learning and your regular professional practice.

So before searching… define what do you need to learn. 

This goes beyond writing on your seacher “online medical course”. It is about stablish certain criteria and make sure that the course or activity that you choose fulfills each one of them. 

Ask yourself: 

• What knowledge do I need to update?
• Am I looking for a more specialized formation?
• Do I want to delve deeper into a scientific news?
• Will it resolve the obstacles I am facing right now during my clinical practice?
• What would I be able to do that I cannot do now?

Once you have all the answers clear, adapt the programs that you find to those parameters and not the opposite. 

At CMC, continuing medical education programs are always created having in mind themain needs of the health professionals, because we work with them on a daily basis. Also, we are aware of the avances that are transforming clinical practice and we intend to offer all those updates as soon as possible. 

The title of the program might sound good but there’s certain things that you should check before signing in. For example: 

• Who organizes the course. 
• The institution, scietific society or entity backing or endorsing it. 
• The teachers giving lessons or in charge of the content. 
• Conflicts of interest.

Transparency inside medical education is one of the most important concepts to improve the quality and credibility of an educational activity. 

The scientific contents of our courses are high-quality. Also they are balanced and independent. We work with the most prestigious medical institutions on each therapeutical area, which allows us to use educational resources to develop exclusive continuing medical education courses. 

All of them count with the collaboration of local experts on each one of their areas. Do you know Professor Jorge Sierra? Or Loreto Carmona, rheumatologist and researcher? Or neurologist Luis Brieva? 

As we said before, the title of the program is not everything. Before sigining in, it would be a good idea to check certain points which are very important. 

• The contents included. 
• The established learning objectives.
• Who is adressed to. 
• How many hours you would have to dedicate to it. 
• The previous necessary knowledge. 

If you have this clear, you will be able to determine if the course is an introduction to certan issue ori f it is more an specialized program. You will be also available to assess if the objectives are reasonable. 

We know how important this is. And that’s why, before you join any of our programs, you have all the information necessary on our oficial website: objectives, structure of the course, duration, the medical areas which is adressed to and what can you expect from it. 

This advice is useful for many things in life, and chosing a new medical course is not an exception. In fact, after many years working with the National Health System, we realized that offerring a lot of content, hours of videos, documents and podcasts, don’t garantee that the course fulfill the required quality standards. 

The most important is that the information is updated, that is supported by scientific evidence and that includes bibliographic references. Besides, you should consider if they differentiate the evidence, the clinical experience and opinion, if it shows cases or relevant situations for clinical practice. It should go beyond memorizing the information, it is about interpreting. 

So remember: the important is to have relevant content, but also trustworthy and useful. 

Not every online course works the same way. Before making a decision, it is important to know if it offers tools that are useful for you and the way you like to learn. 

Do you prefer short videos? Or additional lectures? 
Some people appreciates and learn better with practical clinical cases, podcasts or infographies. And some others need more more interactive activities along with tests. There’s also programs with live sessions, forus or dicussion spaces. 

Make sure that the course is available for computer, tablet or smartphone, depending on what is more comfortable for you. 

And remember something very important: if a course is online it doesn’t mean that is correctly designed. To adapt to the digital media, is necessary to develop a good work methodology, making it intuitive to help with comprehension, interaction and practical application. 

The 100% of our programs are e-learning, with learning objectives, key points, self assessment test and community feedback. Also, they are completely responsive, which means that it adapts to your device, website or smartphone. We also offer a user profile completely personal so you can take notes, save everything that seems relevant and a direct Access to “Tutory” to guide you during all the process and join you during your journey. 

And this is essential for health professionals. So make sure that the course is accredited, not just because it says so on their website, but because it appears on the National Health System website. 

Check the credits and quality factor, along with the requirements that you must fulfill to obtain them. Find out if there’s a final evaluation and how to receive the certificate. 

We wish to offer you quality and recognizement national and internationally. That’s why we’ve decided to accredit each one of our courses, helping you to advance into your professional career, with a balanced, independent and quality guarantee.

Does the course end when you receive your certificate?

That’s important for sure, but there’s certain programs offering reference materials, updated bibliography and practical resources. They can also announce aplicable contents for professional practice and new clinical cases. 

The word speaks for itself: continuing medical education. So if you can access to the content whenever you want and use it for your professional practice, that’s an added value. 

Think about how a good formation goes beyond learning the most updated content. It must offer enough resources to keep looking in the future. 

At CMC we do what we can to provide you with that. Many of our courses offer succesive editions every year, and some of them offer new content after the accreditation period. That’s why newsletters are so important for us, as we can let you know what’s going on as soon as possible. 

If you think that all we have been discussing in this article sounds pretty logical and it’s been useful to make a decision, then we feel very content. 

So if you are trying to find a new continunig medical education course, remember: 

• Does it address a real need?
• Who is organizing it? Who is delivering the content?
• What will I learn?
• Is the information up-to-date and evidence-based?
• Does the format adapt to my learning style, or do I have to adapt to the  format?
• Is it accredited?
• Will I be able to access it once the training is complete and use it as a content and reference library?

We are evolving constantly. We like to learn with you and from you, so we want to provide you with the education you deserve. 

Right now we have programs available for the next clinical areas: 

1. Rheumatology

2. Nephrology

3. Endocrinology

4. Gastroenterology and Hepathology

5. Traumatology

6. Cardiology

If you’re interested in any of them, please get in touch with us and we will give you all the information you need to join in.